


there's a world outside every darkened door

by brella



Category: Morning Glories
Genre: Banter, Epic Friendship, Female Protagonist, Multi, Post-Canon, Road Trips, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-20
Updated: 2015-03-20
Packaged: 2018-03-18 19:27:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3581175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brella/pseuds/brella
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I’m gonna try to find everybody. You, Jun, Hunter, Casey… sort of like a road trip. We could do it.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	there's a world outside every darkened door

**Author's Note:**

> I listened to so much ridiculous road trip music while writing this fic, oh my god. Is Steve Perry's voice even real? Did I dream it? Still it haunts me. 
> 
> So, this thing has been a long time coming. It was born out of a wild conversation with Macey until it was riffed into just enough detail to exist perfectly in my head, and then I tried writing it, which was like, eh, and then I left it alone for a few months, and then I wrote a little more, and I was like, eh, and it continued on like that, and now here we are. Thanks, Steve Perry. Don't stop believin', indeed. 
> 
> I wanted to title this after "Running On Empty" by Jackson Browne, but nothing was really grabbing me, then I tried going for "Graceland," and nothing grabbed me there, either, so I had to settle for the ever-classic "Life is a Highway." Listen to "Running On Empty," though. It's a Fave. I mean, don't get me wrong. The other two nail the overall feel of this mess, but Jackson; oh, Jackson. Thanks should also be extended to Electric Light Orchestra, The Proclaimers, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Redbone, John Mellencamp, Bruce Hornsby, and The Eagles. It's official. I have become my dad.
> 
> I'm sorry, okay? I'm sorry. These kids deserved something wanly resembling happiness, and I'm still trying to do penance for _children of the wild ones_ , which is, I'm pretty sure, the reason Yuuhy is so regularly mean to me. I'm also pretty sure the most enjoyable part of this process was deciding what everyone's favorite classic rock songs were. 
> 
> Anyway, all chatter aside, this is a fond gift for my compliment sparring partner, Silver. Thanks for reminding me why I love writing, or whatever. This is for you. Because what better gift to give you than your horny arsonist children traipsing all over the United States in a shitty pickup truck with their lame friends, right? Love you.

The school is in ruins when they leave it. Jade doesn’t know where anyone is, barely knows where _she_ is; all she knows is that it all smells like blood and smoke and burned flesh and she can hear people crying and whispering and coughing through the dust and fumes thickening in the summer night air. It smells nothing like the clear spring that had met her when she had stepped awkwardly out of a limousine and into the daylight, breath briefly sucked out of her by the grandeur in front of her eyes.

It’s all rubble now, all charred bits stained black and red. And though the smoke is rising higher and higher into the air, the stars have never looked brighter or clearer, and Jade watches them sleepily as her knees give out beneath her and she collapses onto the grass, limp, her calves and elbows seared with blistering burns.

She only hits it at the knees before something swoops down and catches her, clumsily, clinging to her more than holding her up. A heart beats against her eyelids and she croaks wordlessly, shivering when something touches her matted hair.

“You’re all right,” someone says, choked up, making the statement sound like more of a miraculous realization than a reassurance. “You’re okay. Don’t ever fucking scare me like that again; y-you… you can’t _imagine_ the damage it does to my reputation.”

“Did we win?” Jade manages to rasp.

The arms squeeze her. “Arguably. I’m alive, you’re alive, and, to my deep chagrin, I’m _fairly_ certain I saw Hunter a while ago…”

“C-Casey,” Jade whispers, feeling tears well up in her eyes as flashes of clarity dart through her head and pile up behind her teeth, flashes of David’s trembling hand reaching out and Hodge’s skin melting off of her lovely white bones and Daramount screaming out a thousand different curses. “Casey…”

“She’s fine,” the dirty-faced boy holding onto her says. “Literally and figuratively. Surprising no one.”

Recognition snaps in Jade’s mind, then, and she’s whimpering out Ike’s name over and over, curling herself closer to him and fisting the fabric of his seared t-shirt in one hand. He grips her closer, spouts off no inappropriate remarks, and it’s a long while before they stand up and start looking for the others.

 

* * *

 

This is the last conversation Jade Ellsworth remembers having with Casey Blevins.

The winter sun is starting to rise over the frosted, tattered earth and Jade’s holding Ike up with one of his arms slung around her shoulders as he hobbles, broken ankle suspended, beside her. The air smells smoky and the stars are fading and the sky is turning lavender, and Jade’s afraid to blink, afraid to see more destruction hiding in the veins of her eyelids.

Casey’s hair is so golden, so lavish, even though her whole body is scraped and bruised and caked in dirt and dried blood. She’s sitting on a chunk of rubble, skinned knees raised, with her palm flat on the stone. Hunter is next to her. As Jade approaches them with Ike in tow, she sees Hunter slip his hand over and hook his pinkie carefully around Casey’s, and his whole body slackens at the touch, slumping over, spent and weighed down.

The four of them listen to the fire smolder down to embers and the last surviving students cough and cry and crawl, and a bird trills from the forest where they’d once found a secret cave and the ruins of a strange tower.

Jade closes her eyes and smells the burning morning, smells the world, smells the wreckage. She thinks of Zoe. Thinks of Hisao. Feels her knees start to lose their forbearance and wobble.

“What now?” she finally asks, to no one in particular, and her voice is ragged, a feeble thread of its former adamant glory.

Casey slips her hand out of Hunter’s without looking over at him and stands. She stretches her lithe body toward the pale lightening sky and the bones in her spine sound like locks dropping to the floor when they crack. As everyone watches her, a breeze twists by, tangling their hair.

“We go home,” Casey Blevins says to the sun, and two years later, Jade steps onto a summer-soaked podium and graduates high school all alone.

 

* * *

 

When she thinks back to it, no matter how long or how hard, Jade continues to find that, in her mind, the memory of how and when they all went their separate ways is clouded and hazy. It hadn’t been like they’d had any bags – everything they’d owned, everything they’d brought with them, had burned to cinders when the school had – and it hadn’t been like they’d had any money to buy plane tickets, either, but she vaguely remembers the wooden door in the air opening onto the side of a desolate highway somewhere where all of the grass was dry and there was nothing but horizon for miles. The four of them had wound up walking aimlessly along the ditch at the edge of the road until Ike found a payphone and had his father’s company purchase all the transportation they would need.

A Greyhound bus for Casey to who knows where; she wouldn’t tell them, but Jade has a feeling Hunter knows. A plane and train to Toronto for Hunter, a ticket to Tokyo for Jun (even though he hadn’t been with them, wanting to linger back with a bleeding-lipped Guillaume). Ike, naturally, would fly first-class back to Manhattan.

“I might be able to get you a seat in one of those luggage compartments,” he had offered snidely to Jade. A car had sped by, whipping wind along behind it that had almost knocked him and his bad ankle over, but he’d braced himself on the telephone pole at the cost of getting splinters in his palms. Good, she’d thought.  

“Go to hell,” Jade had said, even though, truthfully, she’d felt like she’d already been through it twice. The Bible had never taught her anything about what to do if you claw your way through the underworld and come out the other side with nothing to show for it except for a few scratches and scrapes. It had only taught her never to go there in the first place.

That had been the last she’d seen of any of them. They’d walked until they found a bus stop among the dry grass and the dust, and at sunset the bus had come rattling along and Jade had felt the frost preparing to settle in the approaching night, and she’d sat next to Casey on the ride to the nearest town (at which point Casey slips away to join a sleeping Hunter). They hadn’t said anything, but they hadn’t let go of each other’s hands.

Throughout the two wan remaining years of high school (she stays on an extra year, just because it feels right to make up all the schoolwork she’d probably missed while traveling through time and trying not to die), Hunter’s the only one who ever calls her. They talk maybe once a month, and every time, it becomes a little less stilted, until they can offhandedly laugh about each other’s current lives and new movies and sufficiently pretend Morning Glory Academy never happened.

But here’s the thing: Jade’s happy that the Academy had been totally destroyed, and all; she’s happy that nobody’s ever going to be sent there again, and she’s happy that it’s gone. The thing she _minds_ is that the people she’d met there—the people who’d fought back the end of the world with her—are gone, too, scattered all over North America and parts unknown in a diasporic mess, and she only knows how to get in touch with one of them.

And yeah, they might’ve all been heavily traumatized, and she might still have nightmares about the thing called David. But that doesn’t change Casey’s laugh, or Hunter’s rapid way of talking, or Jun’s shaking energy, or Ike’s gratuitous gesticulations (or Ike’s smell, or Ike’s mouth, or Ike’s shoulder slumping against hers when he accidentally fell asleep on her during night watch). And she’s almost a grown-up now, and grown-ups don’t have the time for remembering shit like what happened to her and to them; she knows she won’t be able to think of Morning Glory Academy all her life, if she plans on having a well-adjusted life in the first place.

Words come back and encroach her when she doesn’t expect them: _A better future_.

That’s right about when she tells Aunt Blair she’s going on a road trip, she guesses.

She can’t take all the credit—her therapist had been the one to give her the inciting nudge. To be fair, though, Jade’s been waffling around the idea of taking to the open U.S. roads since she was fifteen, then enchanted by the inherent romanticism of it, then staunchly proclaiming that “Route 66” was the best rock song ever written (probably because Jimmy shared that same opinion, and she tended to follow in his footsteps until they got too big for her). But anyway, one afternoon in early June, six days after her graduation, she’s sitting on a couch facing her therapist with her hands tucked under her butt (no longer folded defensively at her chest), frowning pensively at the wavering leaves of the cottonwood tree outside the window.

“Jade?” Her therapist is pretty great—she’s in her fifties and from northern Minnesota, so her voice is all at once perky and comforting, and she wears bright red cat eye glasses and always has her gray hair in a braid.

“I mean, it’s stupid, right?” Jade blurts back, gesticulating in frustration. She goes through these cycles, sometimes, where she has an idea, and then she has to talk herself into it and back out of it and into it again about five times before she makes a decision. “How do I even know any of them would want to see me? How would I even _find_ them? Who’s to say they haven’t moved, or—or started going by fake names, or something? I’ve never even been on a road trip before; I’d probably totally fuck myself over just by virtue of not knowing what I’m doing. A-And it’s—well, like, is it even _healthy_ for me to do something like this when I’m not even sure I’ve resolved my _own_ shit? How do I know it wouldn’t just blow up in my face? What if this _isn’t_ closure; what if it just makes everything worse?”

Her therapist is smiling at her with that therapist-twinkle in her eyes, her pen nestled behind her ear.

“Well, to that, I raise you _this_ question,” she says. “What if it doesn’t?” She lifts a hand questioningly. “If it can’t resolve itself in due enough time for you, then maybe you oughta try making your own resolution.”

Jade blinks, letting the words settle. “I don’t get it.”

“You’re a writer, Jade,” her therapist says. “Write your own ending.”

 

* * *

 

So Jade packs up one duffel bag with clothes and four disposable cameras and a worn-out toothbrush (and forgets toothpaste) and a journal and a pen and Jimmy’s old Pendleton blanket. She burns twelve mix CDs and paints her fingernails ultraviolet (not black, not anymore) and charges up her phone, because she only brought the road maps for the sake of classicism, and GPS systems are more suited to her short patience anyway.

The summer is starting up in agitated rumbles, spurring her onwards with wavering heat mirages and a white sun overhead. She slips on her favorite pair of Windsor sunglasses, loads the glove compartment up with the fruitiest gum she can find at the local gas station, and watches Des Moines vanish behind her without really knowing if she’ll ever come back.

When she comes to it, she drives straight past the Chicago exit.

 

* * *

 

It takes her a few seconds to catch up to the fact that she’s been standing in front of the door for almost ten minutes, intermittently holding her breath. In a flash of self-consciousness, she moves to brush imaginary dirt off of her shorts, a pair of washed-out blue cutoffs that she’d made out of her mom’s old jeans. Her knees are red from being bent for so long, and she’s got a driver’s tan, and more freckles than she did when she was sixteen. Her hair is a mess – she’d driven into the city with the windows down and hadn’t bothered combing it after her shower at the Motel 6 before the crack of dawn that morning – and the humidity is wearing down her deodorant, and she can feel a sunburn prickling on the back of her shoulders.

Her stomach starts to squirm, increasingly agitated, the longer she stares at the number on the door. The concierge had let her in and told her which room to look for, but that doesn’t make her feel any less out of place.

“Get it together, Jade,” she whispers to herself through gritted teeth. “Come on. Ring the damn buzzer.”

She’s older, now, so she knows when to listen to herself. Dragging in a heavy breath, she lifts a hand and mashes her thumb a bit too hard on the white button set in the wall. She has a vision of some half-naked girl opening the door and laughing at her, but then slow footsteps that she wishes she didn’t recognize start to thud towards the threshold.

He opens the door slowly, edging into view in the empty space. He’s taller, more lean, his facial features finally set distinctly, though they don’t seem as sharp. His hair is a little longer, and he hasn’t combed it yet, so it’s splayed out over his eyes.

He’s also completely naked.

So, of course, she sees all the places that he’s gotten older—more pronounced hip bones, visible ribs when he stretches, the faintest beginnings of five o’clock shadow, and… _that_. And it’s not like she hasn’t seen him naked before. She may as well be jaded to it by now, actually (but she isn’t). But the sensation of heat that thrums suddenly through her abdomen is entirely unwelcome.

“Ah, Ellsworth,” Ike says airily, like he isn’t even a little bit surprised to see her. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“Dude,” Jade shouts, hauling out a rough shove to his shoulder that almost throws him to his feet, “ _w_ _hy_ are you naked?!”

After righting himself, Ike casually replies, “It’s a nice surprise for the landlord. Although I believe the more pressing question is, why are you suddenly here to condemn my nudity after a two-year absence?" He rolls his shoulder back into place, grimacing. “Christ. I forgot you were a brawny Iowa farm type.”

Jade briefly contemplates spouting back some deflective reply, just on policy of it being Ike, but something stops her. He’s taller than she is now, but he doesn’t tower. He’s more slumped against the door frame than he is leaning against it, for all of his efforts to appear the latter way. And despite his flippant demeanor, she’s pretty sure he hasn’t blinked or looked away from her since he’d stepped into view.

“I just… felt like coming out and seeing you,” she barks, like it’s an attack; she tries to make sure her voice sounds harsh to veil the honesty in the words. “I’m gonna try to find everybody. You, Jun, Hunter, Casey… sort of like a road trip. We could do it. New York was closest, so—”

“Was it?” Ike asks with mock fascination, inclining his head to better display his smug expression. “Was it really closer than the neighboring state of Illinois?”

Jade flushes, caught. Ike quirks an eyebrow at her, his smirk unfurling further.

“Saving the Blevins for last, eh?” he goads her. “How interesting, considering you were such a close friend and confidante of hers back at the ol’ alma mater. Don’t tell me all of that shock and PTSD caused her to cut ties and lose her taste for social visits. I can’t imagine.”

“I don’t know, okay?” Jade explodes, bunching her fists at her sides. “Last I saw her was when we all got off that bus, same as you.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure,” Ike says. “You underestimate the depths of Hunter’s desperation. He called me, you know, about a year ago. Initially I thought he was a telemarketer, but then I thought, ah, wait, I’d known that sound of obnoxious Toronto virgin _anywhere_.”

Jade wrinkles her nose skeptically. “Hunter called _you_?”

Ike rolls out a lazy shrug. “What can I say? I’m naturally irresistible.” He grins wolfishly. “And before you leap into denial, let me just take a second to point out that you _are_ standing here after all these years.”

“I’m not here for—I’m not _doing_ this for _you_ , Ike,” Jade says acidly. “I’m doing it for _us_. All of us. We went through so much at that fucking school, and we _survived_ ; it’s not right for all of us to splinter off and pretend it didn’t happen. We’re not the same people that we were the day we got our acceptance letters and—and thought they were the start of a brighter future; we can’t _exist_ in our old lives, not the way we used to, but we could always exist around each other, you know, so it’s—”

“Tactful avoidance of the _better_ future mantra,” Ike says. “It simply seems to _me_ , Jade, that Iowa farm life no longer holds all the charm and excitement that it once did, which does tend to happen when one saves the world and defies assorted deities before graduating high school. But on the other hand, something tells me…”

He inclines toward her slowly, tilting his head down so that she has to crane hers up to hold his gaze. His eyes seem bluer, somehow, and more attentive, and if someone pushed her, she’d wind up flush against him. Her heart starts to buzz in a way that makes all the blood in her veins give a short, sharp fizzle that winds up in her fingertips.

“Something tells me that you missed me,” Ike finishes, waggling his eyebrows for emphasis (just in case she gets the wrong idea about how serious he is).

Jade breathes in slowly, deeply, through her suddenly open mouth. It shakes, and she has to square her shoulders to keep them from slackening. She wrenches her eyes up from the dimple in Ike’s right cheek (the one she’s inexplicably remembered in a fleeting dash of consciousness at least three times since going back home) and holds his unusually focused stare and swallows, silently, pulling words up over the stone in her throat.

“Yeah, sure, Ike,” she whispers. “As if the feeling wasn’t mutual.”

In response, Ike slips into an unreadable silence. His eyes rove steadily over every feature of her face and body, but Jade realizes that she isn’t being evaluated or measured; he’s reacquainting himself with her, memorizing her, just in case it’s another two years before he sees her again.

Or he’s checking her out. Yeah. That’s more likely.

“Oh, you know,” he says, shrugging himself closer. “Maybe a little.” There’s a pause, and then, not without a certain degree of swiftness, he appends, “You do have great legs. Comforting to know you haven’t lost _that_.”

Now hot with spite again, Jade draws sharply back, plucking apart the humming air between them, and snaps, “Comforting to know you’re still a _giant asshole_. Kudos for all the growing up you’ve been doing.”

“Thank you; my psychiatrist is quite proud of me,” Ike replies with a bright grin at which Jade frowns dubiously. “You would like him. Goes by the name of Dr. Jack Daniels.”

Damn it. Jade has to fight back an exasperated smile and tries to distract from its beginnings by rolling her eyes.

“Ah, see, there it is,” Ike teases her, though with a tincture of sentimentality. “You can’t be all _that_ annoyed with me; those smiles of yours don’t come without being justly earned.”

“Shut up and put your clothes on,” Jade mutters when she ducks her head, shoving him in the shoulder for good measure.

“Now _that_ is a sentence I have _definitely_ missed hearing,” Ike says. Jade honestly can’t tell if he means it or not.

Regardless, to her surprise, he complies, stepping back into the apartment with a flick of his hand to beckon her to follow. She steps in warily, surveying the closed blinds and the minimal furniture, the trail of discarded clothes leading to the bedroom, the askew plum curtains. No light is getting into any part of the space, and she’s sure that, were it not for the open doorway leading out to the hall, the apartment would be in total darkness, a notion that makes her stomach flip clumsily.

Before she can say anything about it (although she doesn’t really know what that would be), his voice ambles over from the kitchen to her left.

“Could I interest you in breakfast foods?” he asks, sounding very plainly like he hopes he could _not_ interest her in _any_ breakfast foods.

She scoffs. “It’s, like, five PM, Ike.”

A beat. “Well, never too late in the day for waffles, if you ask me. But as an aside, I really do need to start opening the curtains in here; it’s like a penthouse outside of time.”

“Dude, do you ever _leave_?” Jade asks. Ike shrugs all mystically and turns away again, walking away.

The coat stand beside the door is piled with haphazard jackets, like he’s repeatedly put one on and resolved to walk out the door only to change his mind, tossing it off again. The kitchen counter is laden with take-out boxes, but no plates. When Ike disappears into the bedroom, Jade steps closer to the coffee table—there’s an old-looking black telephone, a few receipts, the remote for the TV. She tilts her head. The receipts are all for grocery delivery. Her stomach gives another dull lurch.

Her eyes are caught by a crumpled white slip of paper, half-pinned under the telephone. It gives the appearance of having been balled up and smoothed back out multiple times, every disjointed fold worn down.

She bites her lip and considers leaving it be. A drawer opens from the bedroom—Ike’s still occupied. And she’s used to rifling through his clutter and disguise when he isn’t looking, used to searching for scraps of herself hidden among all of it (and never finding them).

She softly tugs the paper out and pries the folds apart with two fingers.

She stares. She’s not sure if she’s suddenly lost her breath or if her chest is collapsing under too much of it.

“Ike?” she calls, but her voice comes out low and quiet. He doesn’t hear her.

She withdraws her hand, letting the edges close again. She wanders, opening the blinds and curtains, taken aback by how much less like a psychopath’s basement the place looks when it’s got some natural light spilling into it. After a few more minutes, Ike emerges from the bedroom, finishing up the last button on his white shirt. The sleeves are rolled up to his elbows.

When he steps into the new light, he grimaces and raises his hand to shield himself from it.

“Jesus!” he exclaims, eyes wrenching shut. “I’d forgotten how bright that fucking thing is.”

“You mean the _sun_?” Jade retorts snidely. “The _brightest object in the sky_?”

Ike manages to scowl at her through his squinted eyes.

“Always with the lovely acerbic remarks,” he mutters, voice ensconced in sarcasm.

“You’re such a wimp; it’s only sunset,” Jade says with a roll of her eyes. “Cry at me when it’s nine in the morning.”

“I can’t remember the last time I saw nine in the morning,” Ike sighs, sounding almost nostalgic. “So, then. This road trip business of yours. I presume you don’t plan on setting off now, since night is descending on the mean streets of New York City and all surrounding interstate highways.”

Jade’s glad that she’s facing away from him when she inhales and replies, rapidly, “I was thinking we'll leave in the morning. I could sleep on the couch. Cheaper than trying to find a hotel in Manhattan.”

“I wouldn’t have guessed you held such a deep attachment to my couch,” Ike says without missing a beat. Jade loosens. “It isn’t even mine; it was Father’s. Not one of my favorite pieces, but better I have it than Mother, in my opinion.”

Jade almost asks him about his mom—almost. She knows just the same as everyone else what had happened to Abraham, how he’d walked calmly back to the night when Ike would kill him, closing the circle forever. (She remembers the dull glistening in Ike’s eyes that only she had seen.)

It had been out of the question for pretty much all of them to go back to their parents—Casey’s were dead, as were Jun’s; Hunter had never had any interest in living with his dad and had resolved to move in with his aunt until he finished high school for real; Jade, for her part, knowing her dad and Jimmy wouldn’t remember her, hadn’t been too hot on going home, either, but somehow Aunt Blair hadn’t been part of the whole amnesia club, and Jade had always liked her, even if her chili _is_ awful.

She’d never known where Ike had ended up. Or—well, she does _now_ , and it’s pretty much the opposite of how she’d imagined it.

Ike had always had a certain gift for indifference, perpetually unperturbed, if not enthused, by all chaotic happenings in his life, no matter the extremity. Jade had privately sort of expected him to fall back into his old routine with ease, tromping around Manhattan with a new girl on his arm every night and six different credit cards and a fake ID (for as long as he’d need one). It doesn’t seem right, knowing he sits inside all day and doesn’t open his blinds and manufactures a scandal every now and then to keep the tabloids riled up.

That had basically been how she’d found him. The tabloids. Finally, they’d wound up being semi-useful.

“You’re taking me out to dinner,” she hears herself declare firmly. She pivots back around to face him, edged in the rosy light of the sinking sun. He isn’t shading his eyes anymore.

He quirks a falsely skeptical eyebrow, his hands going to his hips. He draws his head back slightly like he’s surprised.

“Oh, _am_ I?”

“Yes.” Jade juts her chin out. “I’ve never been to New York before, and I wasted gas money to haul out here and try to fix your garbage life, so dinner’s the _least_ you could do. And don’t act like you can’t afford it; I wouldn’t be surprised if you used hundred dollar bills for toilet paper.”

“Excuse me. I’m not _that_ profligate. I only use fifties.” Ike taps his chin in drawn-out pensiveness that tempts Jade, once again, to outright slug him. “I suppose I could swing that,” he says after a time. “How do you feel about Italian?”

She has to admit she’s kind of astonished. He doesn’t take her to some biohazardous dive or any place with a bar in it. She earns a good number of upturned noses for her cutoffs and sneakers, but Ike looks good enough that nobody throws them out (not that she’s saying Ike looks _good_ , ew, just that he looks… “good,” like, appropriate). Even more surprising is that there are no heavy silences, no averted eyes, throughout the entire time they’re having dinner, and it doesn’t even feel like it’s been two years, not really, because the bygone comfort that comes from insulting Ike is still there, and Ike’s eyes are still blue, and he still combs his hair the same way, and they’re both still terrible at talking about anything they should be.

That counts for something, right?

She _does_ sleep on his couch that night. Don’t give her that look. That doesn’t mean Ike closes his door, or that he doesn’t linger a little in the living room like he’s forgotten how to say good night.

“Thanks for dinner,” she mumbles while she settles in under the comforter that kind of smells like his cologne, which, gross. Ike doesn’t say anything at first, which she knows means that he’s putting actual thought into his response. Those silences used to make her hold her breath, but not anymore.

“Well,” he replies eventually, like he’s about to raise a counterpoint, “Thanks for… continuing to follow through on stupid ideas.”

Jade frowns, underwhelmed, but he raises a placating hand.

“What I mean to say is—” He sighs. “Thank you, Jade, for coming.”

He vanishes into the bedroom before she can open her mouth to say something back. She doesn’t really sleep much.

 

* * *

 

“So,” Jade exclaims brightly, “how do you like your eggs?”

The sour glare on Ike’s face is a sight to behold. He’s standing in the kitchen doorway with his robe haphazardly tied and his hair rumpled, and Jade suddenly understands what he meant when he said he couldn’t remember the last time he saw 9 AM. Sunlight all but blasts into the apartment from the windows (which she’d managed to wrestle open an hour earlier, so there’s a slight breeze that will undoubtedly give way to brutal humidity by 11).

“Jade,” Ike grits out.

“Ike,” she bandies back, grinning. She’d forgotten how satisfying his misery is.

“What—” He frowns more deeply, closing his eyes. “What _time_ is it?”

Jade glances at the clock on the microwave.

“8:13.”

“Buh!” Ike yelps, shooting to her side, his hand gripping her shoulder as he leans over her to stare at the microwave. “No, God, _please_ ; that is the _epitome_ of a bad omen, and I don’t even consider myself a believer in those.”

Jade snorts. “I’m just messing with you. It’s 7:30.”

“Impossible,” he croaks. “This is inhumane. I ought to have you arrested.”

“What for? It’s a nice morning; enjoy it.” She prods the egg that she’s frying. “I want to be off and running for Toronto by nine at the latest, so you’re gonna have to eat breakfast fast and then get packing. How do you like your eggs?”

“You’re a monster,” Ike whispers, aghast. “An absolute monster.” Then: “Over-easy.”

He eats them with painstaking slowness, which she initially thinks is just a method for hindering her timetable, but then he sets his fork down and casually says, “It’s been a while since I’ve participated in this ‘breakfast’ business. I _have_ missed it.”

Jade flushes a little. Stupid. “You’re welcome.”

“One question: We are heading for Toronto _why_ , exactly?”

Jade pulls a face. “To get Hunter, obviously.”

Ike does, too. “Must we?”

“Don’t give me that, Ike; you know you missed him.”

“I did no such thing!” Ike scoffs, feigning indignation and slapping the table for good measure. “I may have dabbled in the pathetic since our little liberation party, Jade, but I will _never_ stoop _that_ low.”

Jade rolls her eyes, but lets him have that one.

“If you’re an asshole to him when we see him, I _will_ break your nose,” she says while washing the soap off of a plate in the sink.

“I don’t know. Hunter’s past experiences with violence have largely ended in distress.” Ike leans back in his chair and stretches. “He’s quite fragile, you know. A pacifist at heart.”

“Since when did _you_ start looking out for Hunter?”

There’s a pause, more for thought than effect, before Ike coolly replies, “Oh, you know. Since he started looking out for me.”

And that’s something Jade will never be able to understand, so, instead, she grunts, “You know how to drive, right?”

“Jade, please,” Ike says as though insulted, one hand pressing to his chest. “I am an absolutely excellent driver.”

 

* * *

 

“I will pay the ticket,” he says.

They’re ten miles outside of New York City and Jade has already decided never to let Ike behind the wheel of her truck again. As soon as the highway patrolman had driven off, she’d punched Ike in the shoulder and forced him out of the driver’s seat, which is where she’s sitting now, diligently observing posted traffic regulations.

She could kill him. She could seriously murder him. Swiftly. With her bare hands. She could ensure that his body would never be found.

“Shut the fuck up,” she growls. “Do not say a single fucking word.”

“That’s being a little unfair, don’t you think?” Ike asks. Jade jerks her eyes so far back that she’s surprised they don’t get stuck there. “ _I_ am merely a victim of the capricious nature of arbitrary human laws.”

“I’m not talking to you,” she says with a firm shake of her head. “I’m _not_.”

Ike shrugs and reaches for the radio knob, but Jade swats his hand sharply. He raises his arms in surrender and slumps back in the seat.

They make their way to the I-80 West in silence, and factoring in all of the nightmarish traffic, that whole journey takes them almost two and a half hours. Jade wants to turn on the radio, but she knows that Ike does, too, so she stubbornly refuses to give him the satisfaction. The sprawling urban landscape recedes behind them to give way to hills and sun-enlivened trees, and Ike sits with his head against the window, staring out or scraping the dirt out from under his fingernails or picking at his teeth or whistling jazz standards. Jade’s eyes dart periodically over to him, in such quick glances that it’s barely visible, or so she’s hoping. The last thing she needs is for Ike to be aware of the fact that she’s paying attention to him.

By the time they take the last exit they will be for the next seventy miles, she thinks that he might be asleep, because he’s perfectly still and his arms are hanging long and limp between his open legs, and his even breathing mingles with the muffled hum of the engine. She feels the tension in her shoulders start to unravel—in part, she’s sure, because the GPS won’t be yelling at her for a while; God, she is _never_ coming to the state of New York again—and as the open road in front of her carries on, she feels the smallest of smiles quirking onto her cheeks, and she really has no clue why. She rolls down the window and lets her arm slip out, driving one-handed, the wind wildly tossing her hair.

Around 12:30, tempted by a roadside sign reading _Dobb’s Country Kitchen_ and _Dunkin’ Donuts_ and an abrupt craving for chicken fried steak, she takes the exit towards Hallstead, one of the last towns in Pennsylvania. At the first stoplight, she swats Ike’s arm to wake him up. He comes to with a series of incoherent mumbles.

“What’s on fire?” he slurs.

“Nothing,” Jade says. “I’m hungry. It’s lunchtime.”

With a groan, Ike sits up. Jade hears his back crack in several places.

“Please tell me you’re not eyeing some FDA-condemned burger shack,” he grumbles, squinting blearily at the simple avenue down which they’re cruising. “I’m not entirely sure I trust your Midwestern taste.”

Jade scowls over at him. “Dude, just because we didn’t all grow up with caviar in our baby food doesn’t mean you’re the only one who knows how good food works.” She doubts he can even cook, honestly.

“Caviar in baby food? You see, that’s exactly my point. The kind of mind that can conjure up a notion so repulsive is _not_ one I trust to decide on dining venues.”

“You pick, you buy,” Jade says stoutly. “That’s the deal.”

“I don’t recall agreeing to this,” Ike grumbles. “Ugh, _fine_ , fine; it doesn’t look like there’s much else in this godforsaken place. Lead me to my grave.”

Jade, as she pulls into the Dobb’s parking lot, suddenly can't even begin to cover her regret in picking him up first.  

 

* * *

 

They get through Buffalo and cross Peace Bridge into Ontario around five. The sky overhead is a rich blue, made still bluer by the languorously sinking sun. Jade has to admit that she’s astonished Ike doesn’t get them detained at the border just by mouthing off and acting repulsive, but he’s remarkably well-behaved, only tossing out two snide quips and earning two ensuing glares (both from her). When they stop off briefly in Fort Erie to stretch, she makes sure to whack him upside the head.

She should never have given him permission to speak again, because now, after driving past Grimsby and having to listen to him riff on its similarity to “Gribbsie” for about fifteen minutes, they’re approaching Toronto, and listening to her GPS’s very complicated directions is unsurprisingly impossible with Ike pontificating at full volume next to her.

“I’ve never visited Toronto myself,” Ike is blathering now, sounding as bored as he usually does, head lolling back against the seat, aviators glinting in the sunlight. “It’s like it’s trying too hard to be New York.”

“City,” Jade grunts. “New York City. New York is the state.”

“New York City _is_ New York.”

“No, it’s not. Can you _please_ shut your mouth for, like, five minutes? This is where it gets dicey, so I need to—”

“Are you saying that it is only just now getting dicey?” Ike scoffs. “Jade, I think we passed that point the second you decided to seek out _Hunter_ , of all people. Do I even _want_ to know how you know his address?”

“He mailed me a birthday card last year,” Jade explains distractedly. “Had a return address.”

“ _In 800 feet, turn left onto Jameson Avenue_ —”

“I had no idea you two had become so chummy since that graduation party of ours. And what a party it was, filled with corpses and mayhem! Not my typical area of expertise, but I like to think that I adjusted—”  

“ _In 100 feet, turn left onto Jameson Avenue_ —”

“Jade, for God’s sake, you almost ran that poor cart-pushing man down. Have you no mercy on these dangerous roads? You are part of the reason why traffic laws have become so confining in this country—”

“We’re not in the U.S. anymore, Ike, now _please_ shut your fu—”

“ _In 0.4 miles, turn right onto Queen Street West_ —”

“That’s something I’ve never understood. Is there also a Queen Street East, North, and South? Northeast? Southwest? I doubt it. These Torontonians have never had a gift for directions—”

“OH, MY GOD, IKE—”

“ _In 2.2 miles, turn left onto Dufferin Street_ —”

“Siri, quiet; you’ll only exacerbate Ellsworth’s breakdown.”

“I SWEAR TO GOD, I WILL TURN THIS CAR AROUND.”

You get the picture.

The address from the envelope in which Hunter’s card had been hastily folded leads them to a small house on Salem Avenue in the suburbs, in front of which a bright green bicycle and a large motorcycle are parked. A burly pot containing a very dead plant is perched on the first stair leading up to the porch. There’s another stone staircase descending to what looks like a basement door. And when Jade says _small_ house, she isn’t exaggerating, by the way.

“Huh,” Ike says, sounding legitimately taken aback. “I was envisioning more of a… dumpster, you know? It seems more like Hunter’s speed. Are you sure this is the right address? Because either Hunter has miraculously managed to score a motorcycle-riding significant other, or this place belongs to someone infinitely cooler than he could ever be, and he really _is_ living in a dumpster somewhere by that inane movie theatre he could never shut up about.”

“Speaking of shutting up,” Jade snaps, giving him a pointed glare.

He rolls his head to face her, one side of his mouth pulled up in a defined smirk, and flicks his sunglasses down so that his eyes are visible.

“You love me,” he tells her all confidently.

“Keep dreaming.” She finishes parallel parking along the sidewalk and turns the engine off, unlocking her seatbelt. “Wait here. I don’t want you traumatizing some old lady if this is the wrong house.”

“How hurtful,” Ike whimpers, draping an arm across his eyes in histrionic sorrow. “Nobody likes me, everybody hates me, I’m going to go out in the garden and eat worms.”

Jade slams the driver side door shut. Her knees pop when she straightens her legs and stretches. She sucks in a steadying breath and makes a vain attempt at fixing her tousled hair before marching up to the staircase, taking the steps slowly, one at a time.

There’s no name on the mailbox, just the house number—495—and a lot of junk pamphlets poking out the top. On the floor beneath it is a cardboard box. Jade tilts her head. It’s from Amazon, but that’s not what’s important. She hunkers down to read the name over the address.

Most of it’s smudged, but she makes out the first half of it: _Hunter_.

She grins.

In an instant, she vaults herself back to her feet and pounds her fists on the door in some mockery of a rhythm solo, unable to contain her bouncing. She glances over her shoulder at the pickup, where Ike is, mercifully, still sitting, giving her a wry thumbs up that she returns in double, gesticulating at the door enthusiastically and beaming. He waves a hand at her like she’s an embarrassment, which, okay, she probably closely resembles.

The sound of the doorknob turning jerks her back around. Her heart won’t stop thumping, but it’s not really out of the same paralyzing nervousness that had gripped her back in Manhattan; she’s practically vibrating, hands clenched into fists at her sides to try to stall the energy threatening to burst out of her fingertips.

Hunter looks… pretty much the same. His hair’s a little longer, and he looks like he’s a day overdue for a shave (no longer showing the peach fuzz that she remembers from when they were sixteen). He’s definitely taller, and his jawline isn’t as round, but his nose is still just as big and he’s still got a bit of a tummy on him and he’s still wearing that old watch, even though she’s sure that it’s stopped running by now. His pajama pants are a little too short for him. _NEVER TELL ME THE ODDS_ , his blue t-shirt says in faded yellowish Star Wars font.

His eyes—still really fucking green; that’s a relief—land on her and practically bug out. He glances over his shoulder, then to his left, then right, then back to her again, silently, like he thinks he’s being Punk’d.

After a good few seconds, during which Jade smiles brightly at him and he stares dumbly back, he finally blurts out, “Holy shit!”

A beat. “ _Jade_!”

The grin on Jade’s face digs into her, spreads all the way to her knees. Laughing wildly, she leaps forward, tackling him in a hug that nearly bowls him over, but his arms aren’t as useless as they used to be, so he catches her, lifting her off of her feet.

“Holy shit, holy shit,” he repeats. “You’re here? Here. In Toronto. At my house. Well, I guess it’s more of a shack—”

“Shut up, nerd,” Jade interrupts, still giggling. “Focus on the hug.”

He does, tightening his grip on her, and she feels his cheeks rise with a smile.

“Ah, Hunter!” Ike calls from the truck, apparently unable to obey Jade any longer. “What’s new and exciting? Still a virgin?”

“Oh, Jesus,” Hunter mutters, still holding Jade up. “Please, _please_ don’t tell me—”

“Sorry,” Jade whispers as innocently as she can.

Hunter’s whole body goes stiff; she feels it. Softly, but somehow still bitterly, he says, “I hate you.”

Ike lopes over to them. Hunter lowers Jade back to the porch floor, whereupon she claps him commiseratingly on the back a couple of times, exaggerating her grimace. He doesn’t glare at Ike the way he used to, though. He hardly even frowns, really. He just looks vaguely exasperated, like he’s bracing himself for some inevitable dodgeball.

Ike, for his part, looks about as genuinely elated as he’s capable of looking without losing his air of perpetual smugness.

Jade watches, stepping aside to clear a path between them, as Ike comes to a halt in front of Hunter and extends his hand to shake. Hunter gives it a look like it may as well have mold on it.

“Reunited,” Ike says, wiping a fake tear. His sunglasses are perched on his head. “I’m sure you’ve been utterly lost without my guidance and company. No need for tears, old boy; your years of suffering can finally end. Come on now—let’s hug like men.”

Hunter nods contemplatively and then punches him in the face.

Ike stumbles back, looking more resignedly accepting than anything else. Hunter draws his arm back, huffing. Jade’s still waiting for the moment when he’ll start yelping about how much it hurt his hand to crack Ike in the jaw, but it never comes.

Ike blinks for a second, covering the point of impact on his cheek with his hand.

“You know,” he finally says with a finger raised for emphasis, frowning bemusedly at a point over Hunter’s head, “Your hand is supposed to _shake_ mine, not cause me bodily injury. Is that how greetings work in Canada? Because I’m afraid I won’t be able to reciprocate; I just got a manicure.”

“How did she get you to come along?” Hunter demands. “Did she bribe you?”

“You can’t _imagine_ ,” Ike leers.

Jade flares with indignation and hits him in the shoulder.

“Don’t listen to him,” she grumbles to Hunter out of the corner of her mouth.

“Trust me, I wasn’t planning on it,” Hunter says. “Seriously, though.” He addresses Ike now with a glower. “There is _no way_ you’d haul your obnoxious ass out here for a reunion unless there was something in it for you, so what is it?”

“Can’t people change over the course of two years?” Ike asks, sounding falsely wounded.

“People, yes,” Hunter snipes back. “You, no.”

“I’m hurt, Hunter; truly,” Ike says. “Is the opportunity to see old friends and roommates not considered ‘in it’ for me?”

At that, Hunter looks pretty flabbergasted. Jade, sensing his bewilderment, steps forward, giving him a pointed look as he gapes questioningly at her, and, solemnly, she nods once.

“Wow,” Hunter mouths at her, dumbstruck. He wheels his attention immediately back to Ike. “Well, good luck explaining that to Jun, since he kind of, uh… despises the air you occupy.”

He says it like it’s new information, which it totally is not. But more importantly—

“Jun?” Jade splutters incredulously. “What—I thought—” She shakes her head rapidly. “Isn’t Jun living in the woods somewhere in Alaska? That was what you said the last time I talked to you!”

Hunter fidgets sheepishly. “Uh, well, yeah, he _was_ …”

Jade really cannot conjure up a response, but she does note offhandedly that Hunter’s tendency to trail off on important information is _still_ annoying. She must be glaring, because Hunter jerks his hands up in defense.

“He just showed up here about three months ago and now he sleeps on the couch and goes halfsies on the groceries, okay, it’s not my fault.”

“How romantic,” Ike coos.

“Wow, I have not missed you at _all_ , Ike, thank you for reminding me,” Hunter says acidly, sneering aside at him.

“Is he here now?” Jade demands, snapping her fingers to reattain Hunter’s attention. She can’t keep the rising excitement out of her voice because, honestly, she’d been expecting Jun to be holed up in the forest somewhere like Irina, totally unreachable, but… apparently Hunter _does_ have his uses.

“Yeah, he’s around,” Hunter replies. “He’s doing push-ups. He can probably bring your stuff in, if you want.”

Ike turns his pockets inside-out, faking a culpable expression.

“You’ll have to put it on my tab, I’m afraid,” he says. “I lost all of my money on girls and wine, you see.”

“Oh my God,” Hunter moans, his head dropping back. “I am already done with you being here; you’re sleeping on the porch.”

“Such unrelenting cruelty and it’s only a Saturday night!” Ike exclaims. He slings an arm around Hunter’s shoulder and grins at his scowl. “Gee, isn’t this just a delight? Old war buddies, reunited at last. I might cry.”

“Me, too,” Hunter says. When he shoots Jade a withering, betrayed look, all she can do is cover her mouth and laugh.

**Author's Note:**

> Part 1 of... 3, probably? Probably 3. Maybe 4. I DON'T KNOW. Don't hold me to that. There is seriously way more.
> 
> The rating on this will probably go up. It's Jade and Ike, after all. But like, no spoilers, or anything.
> 
> Please yell at me to finish this as much as possible. It's important.


End file.
